Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

  When I was seized with my disorder, I protested against both these assassins; — but what can a helpless, feverish, toast-and-watered poor wretch do? In spite of my teeth and tongue, the English consul, my Tartar, Albanians, dragoman, forced a physician upon me, and in three days vomited and glystered me to the last gasp. In this state I made my epitaph — take it: —

  Youth, Nature, and relenting Jove,

  To keep my lamp in strongly strove:

  But Romanelli was so stout,

  He beat all three — and blew it out.

  But Nature and Jove, being piqued at my doubts, did, in fact, at last,

  beat Romanelli, and here I am, well but weakly, at your service.

  Since I left Constantinople, I have made a tour of the Morea, and visited Veley Pacha, who paid me great honours, and gave me a pretty stallion. H. is doubtless in England before even the date of this letter: — he bears a despatch from me to your bardship. He writes to me from Malta, and requests my journal, if I keep one. I have none, or he should have it; but I have replied in a consolatory and exhortatory epistle, praying him to abate three and sixpence in the price of his next boke, seeing that half a guinea is a price not to be given for any thing save an opera ticket.

  As for England, it is long since I have heard from it. Every one at all connected with my concerns is asleep, and you are my only correspondent, agents excepted. I have really no friends in the world; though all my old school companions are gone forth into that world, and walk about there in monstrous disguises, in the garb of guardsmen, lawyers, parsons, fine gentlemen, and such other masquerade dresses. So, I here shake hands and cut with all these busy people, none of whom write to me. Indeed I ask it not; — and here I am, a poor traveller and heathenish philosopher, who hath perambulated the greatest part of the Levant, and seen a great quantity of very improvable land and sea, and, after all, am no better than when I set out — Lord help me!

  I have been out fifteen months this very day, and I believe my concerns will draw me to England soon; but of this I will apprise you regularly from Malta. On all points Hobhouse will inform you, if you are curious as to our adventures. I have seen some old English papers up to the 15th of May. I see the Lady of the Lake advertised. Of course it is in his old ballad style, and pretty. After all, Scott is the best of them. The end of all scribblement is to amuse, and he certainly succeeds there. I long to read his new romance.

  And how does Sir Edgar? and your friend Bland? I suppose you are involved in some literary squabble. The only way is to despise all brothers of the quill. I suppose you won’t allow me to be an author, but I contemn you all, you dogs! — I do.

  You don’t know Dallas, do you? He had a farce ready for the stage before I left England, and asked me for a prologue, which I promised, but sailed in such a hurry I never penned a couplet. I am afraid to ask after his drama, for fear it should be damned — Lord forgive me for using such a word! but the pit, Sir, you know the pit — they will do those things in spite of merit. I remember this farce from a curious circumstance. When Drury Lane was burnt to the ground, by which accident Sheridan and his son lost the few remaining shillings they were worth, what doth my friend Dallas do? Why, before the fire was out, he writes a note to Tom Sheridan, the manager of this combustible concern, to inquire whether this farce was not converted into fuel with about two thousand other unactable manuscripts, which of course were in great peril, if not actually consumed. Now was not this characteristic? — the ruling passions of Pope are nothing to it. Whilst the poor distracted manager was bewailing the loss of a building only worth £300,000., together with some twenty thousand pounds of rags and tinsel in the tiring rooms, Bluebeard’s elephants, and all that — in comes a note from a scorching author, requiring at his hands two acts and odd scenes of a farce!!

  Dear H., remind Drury that I am his well-wisher, and let Scrope Davies be well affected towards me. I look forward to meeting you at Newstead, and renewing our old champagne evenings with all the glee of anticipation. I have written by every opportunity, and expect responses as regular as those of the liturgy, and somewhat longer. As it is impossible for a man in his senses to hope for happy days, let us at least look forward to merry ones, which come nearest to the other in appearance, if not in reality; and in such expectations I remain, etc.

  [Footnote 1: Hobhouse, writing to Byron from Malta, July 31, 1810, says,

  “Mrs. Bruce picked out a pretty picture of a woman in a fashionable dress in Ackerman’s ‘Repository’, and observed it was vastly like Lord Byron. I give you warning of this, for fear you should make another conquest and return to England without a curl upon your head. Surely the ladies copy Delilah when they crop their lovers after this fashion.

  ’Successful youth! why mourn thy ravish’d hair,

  Since each lost lock bespeaks a conquer’d fair,

  And young and old conspire to make thee bare?’

  This makes me think of my poor ‘Miscellany’, which is quite dead, if indeed that can be said to be dead which was never alive; not a soul knows, or knowing will speak of it.” Again, July 15, 1811, he writes: “The ‘Miscellany’ is so damned that my friends make it a point of politeness not to mention it ever to me.”]

  [Footnote 2: ‘The Lady of the Lake’ was published in May, 1810.]

  [Footnote 3: For Dallas, see page 168 [Letter 87], [Foot]note 1. His farce, entitled, ‘Not at Home’, was acted at the Lyceum, by the Drury Lane Company, in November, 1809. It was afterwards printed, with a prologue (intended to have been spoken) written by Walter Rodwell Wright, author of ‘Horae Ionicae’.]

  [Footnote 4: Drury Lane Theatre, burned down in 1791, and reopened in 1794, was again destroyed by fire on February 24, 1809.]

  [Footnote 5: Thomas Sheridan (1775-1817), originally in the army, was at this time assisting his father, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, as manager of Drury Lane Theatre. His ‘Bonduca’ was played at Covent Garden in May, 1808. He married, in 1805, Caroline Henrietta Callender, who was “more beautiful than anybody but her daughters,” afterwards Mrs. Norton, the Duchess of Somerset, and Lady Dufferin. He died at the Cape of Good Hope in 1817. “Tom Sheridan and his beautiful wife” were at Gibraltar in 1809, when Byron and Hobhouse landed on the Rock, and, as Galt states (‘Life of Byron’, p. 58), brought the news to Lady Westmorland of their arrival. (See ‘English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers’, lines 572, 573, and note 1.)]

  [Footnote 6: ‘Bluebeard, or Female Curiosity’, by George Colman the Younger (1762-1836), was being acted at Drury Lane in January, 1809. “Bluebeard’s elephants” were wicker-work constructions. It was at Covent Garden that the first live elephant was introduced two years later. Johnstone, the machinist employed at Drury Lane, famous for the construction of wooden children, wicker-work lions, and paste-board swans, was present with a friend.

  “Among the attractions of this Christmas foolery, a real elephant was introduced…. The friend, who sat close to Johnstone, jogged his elbow, whispering, ‘This is a bitter bad job for Drury! Why, the elephant’s alive! He’ll carry all before him, and beat you hollow. What do you think on’t, eh?’ ‘Think on’t?’ said Johnstone, in a tone of utmost contempt, ‘I should be very sorry if I couldn’t make a much better elephant than that, at any time’“

  (George Colman the Younger, ‘Random Records’, vol. i. pp. 228, 229).]

  149. — To John Cam Hobhouse.

  Patras, Morea, October 4th, 1810.

  MY Dear Hobhouse, — I wrote to you two days ago, but the weather and my friend Strané’s conversation being much the same, and my ally Nicola in bed with a fever, I think I may as well talk to you, the rather, as you can’t answer me, and excite my wrath with impertinent observations, at least for three months to come.

  I will try not to say the same things I have set down in my other letter of the 2nd, but I can’t promise, as my poor head is still giddy with my late fever.

  I saw the Lady Hesther Stanhope at Athens, and do not admire �
�that dangerous thing a female wit.” She told me (take her own words) that she had given you a good set-down at Malta, in some disputation about the Navy; from this, of course, I readily inferred the contrary, or in the words of an acquaintance of ours, that “you had the best of it.”

  She evinced a similar disposition to argufy with me, which I avoided by either laughing or yielding. I despise the sex too much to squabble with them, and I rather wonder you should allow a woman to draw you into a contest, in which, however, I am sure you had the advantage, she abuses you so bitterly.

  I have seen too little of the Lady to form any decisive opinion, but I

  have discovered nothing different from other she-things, except a

  great disregard of received notions in her conversation as well as

  conduct. I don’t know whether this will recommend her to our sex, but

  I am sure it won’t to her own. She is going on to Constantinople.

  Ali Pacha is in a scrape. Ibrahim Pacha and the Pacha of Scutari have come down upon him with 20,000 Gegdes and Albanians, retaken Berat, and threaten Tepaleni. Adam Bey is dead, Vely Pacha was on his way to the Danube, but has gone off suddenly to Yanina, and all Albania is in an uproar.

  The mountains we crossed last year are the scene of warfare, and there is nothing but carnage and cutting of throats. In my other letter I mentioned that Vely had given me a fine horse. On my late visit he received me with great pomp, standing, conducted me to the door with his arm round my waist, and a variety of civilities, invited me to meet him at Larissa and see his army, which I should have accepted, had not this rupture with Ibrahim taken place. Sultan Mahmout is in a phrenzy because Vely has not joined the army. We have a report here, that the Russians have beaten the Turks and taken Muchtar Pacha prisoner, but it is a Greek Bazaar rumour and not to be believed.

  I have now treated you with a dish of Turkish politics. You have by this time gotten into England, and your ears and mouth are full of “Reform Burdett, Gale Jones, minority, last night’s division, dissolution of Parliament, battle in Portugal,” and all the cream of forty newspapers.

  In my t’other letter, to which I am perpetually obliged to refer, I have offered some moving topics on the head of your Miscellany, the neglect of which I attribute to the half guinea annexed as the indispensable equivalent for the said volume.

  Now I do hope, notwithstanding that exorbitant demand, that on your return you will find it selling, or, what is better, sold, in consequence of which you will be able to face the public with your new volume, if that intention still subsists.

  My journal, did I keep one, should be yours. As it is I can only offer my sincere wishes for your success, if you will believe it possible for a brother scribbler to be sincere on such an occasion.

  Will you execute a commission for me? Lord Sligo tells me it was the intention of Miller in Albemarle Street to send by him a letter to me, which he stated to be of consequence. Now I have no concern with Mr. M. except a bill which I hope is paid before this time; will you visit the said M. and if it be a pecuniary matter, refer him to Hanson, and if not, tell me what he means, or forward his letter.

  I have just received an epistle from Galt, with a Candist poem, which it seems I am to forward to you. This I would willingly do, but it is too large for a letter, and too small for a parcel, and besides appears to be damned nonsense, from all which considerations I will deliver it in person. It is entitled the “Fair Shepherdess,” or rather “Herdswoman;” if you don’t like the translation take the original title “[Greek (transliterated): hae boskopoula].” Galt also writes something not very intelligible about a “Spartan State paper” which by his account is everything but Laconic. Now the said Sparta having some years ceased to be a state, what the devil does he mean by a paper? he also adds mysteriously that the affair not being concluded, he cannot at present apply for it.

  Now, Hobhouse, are you mad? or is he? Are these documents for Longman & Co.? Spartan state papers! and Cretan rhymes! indeed these circumstances super-added to his house at Mycone (whither I am invited) and his Levant wines, make me suspect his sanity. Athens is at present infested with English people, but they are moving, Dio bendetto! I am returning to pass a month or two; I think the spring will see me in England, but do not let this transpire, nor cease to urge the most dilatory of mortals, Hanson. I have some idea of purchasing the Island of Ithaca; I suppose you will add me to the Levant lunatics. I shall be glad to hear from your Signoria of your welfare, politics, and literature.

  Your last letter closes pathetically with a postscript about a nosegay; I advise you to introduce that into your next sentimental novel. I am sure I did not suspect you of any fine feelings, and I believe you were laughing, but you are welcome.

  Vale; “I can no more,” like Lord Grizzle.

  Yours,

  [Greek (transliterated): Mpairon]

  [Footnote 1: Nicolo Giraud, from whom Byron was learning Italian.]

  [Footnote 2: Hobhouse had written to Byron, speaking of Lady Hester Stanhope “as the most superior woman, as Bruce says, of all the world.” The daughter of Pitt’s favourite sister, Lady Hester (1776-1839) was her uncle’s constant companion (1803-6). In character she resembled her grandfather far more than her uncle, who owed his cool judgment to the Grenville blood. Lady Hester inherited the overweening pride, generosity, courage, and fervent heat of the “Great Commoner,” as well as his indomitable will. Like him, she despised difficulties, and ignored the word “impossibility.” Her romantic ideas were also combined with keen insight into character, and much practical sagacity. These were the qualities which made her for many years a power among the wild tribes of Lebanon, with whom she was in 1810 proceeding to take up her abode (1813-39).]

  [Footnote 3: Sir Francis Burdett (1770-1844), a lifelong friend of Lady Hester Stanhope, was afterwards Hobhouse’s colleague as M.P. for Westminster (1820-33). He was committed to the Tower in 1810 for publishing a speech which he delivered in the House of Commons in defence of John Gale Jones, whom the House (February, 1810) had sent to Newgate for a breach of privilege. Sir Francis refused to obey the warrant, and told the sergeant-at-arms that he would not go unless taken by force. His refusal led to riots near his house (77, Piccadilly), in which the Horse Guards, or “Oxford Blues” as they were called, gained the name of “Piccadilly Butchers” (Lord Albemarle’s ‘Recollections’, vol. i. pp. 317, 318).]

  [Footnote 4: See page 319, ‘note 2.’]

  [Footnote 5: John Galt (1779-1839), the novelist, was at this time endeavouring to establish a place of business at Mycone, in the Greek Archipelago. He published in 1812 his ‘Voyages and Travels in the Years’ 1809, 1810, 1811. (For his meeting with Byron at Gibraltar, see page 243 [Letter 130], [Foot]note 1.)]

  [Footnote 6: Hobhouse’s letter to Byron of July 31, 1810, ends with the following postscript: —

  “I kept the half of your little nosegay till it withered entirely, and even then I could not bear to throw it away. I can’t account for this, nor can you either, I dare say.”]

  [Footnote 7: Lord Grizzle, in Fielding’s ‘Tom Thumb’, is the first peer in the Court of King Arthur, who, jealous of Tom Thumb and in love with the Princess Huncamunca, turns traitor, and is run through the body by Tom Thumb. It is the ghost, not Grizzle, who says, “I can no more.” (See page 226 [Letter 124], [Foot]note 1.)]

  150. — To Francis Hodgson.

  Athens, November 14, 1810.

  MY DEAR HODGSON, — This will arrive with an English servant whom I send homewards with some papers of consequence. I have been journeying in different parts of Greece for these last four months, and you may expect me in England somewhere about April, but this is very dubious. Hobhouse you have doubtless seen; he went home in August to arrange materials for a tour he talks of publishing. You will find him well and scribbling — that is, scribbling if well, and well if scribbling.

  I suppose you have a score of new works, all of which I hope to see flou
rishing, with a hecatomb of reviews. My works are likely to have a powerful effect with a vengeance, as I hear of divers angry people, whom it is proper I should shoot at, by way of satisfaction. Be it so, the same impulse which made “Otho a warrior” will make me one also. My domestic affairs being moreover considerably deranged, my appetite for travelling pretty well satiated with my late peregrinations, my various hopes in this world almost extinct, and not very brilliant in the next, I trust I shall go through the process with a creditable sang froid and not disgrace a line of cut-throat ancestors.

  I regret in one of your letters to hear you talk of domestic embarrassments, indeed I am at present very well calculated to sympathise with you on that point. I suppose I must take to dram-drinking as a succedaneum for philosophy, though as I am happily not married, I have very little occasion for either just yet.

  Talking of marriage puts me in mind of Drury, who I suppose has a dozen children by this time, all fine fretful brats; I will never forgive Matrimony for having spoiled such an excellent Bachelor. If anybody honours my name with an inquiry tell them of “my whereabouts” and write if you like it. I am living alone in the Franciscan monastery with one “friar” (a Capuchin of course) and one “frier” (a bandy-legged Turkish cook), two Albanian savages, a Tartar, and a Dragoman. My only Englishman departs with this and other letters. The day before yesterday the Waywode (or Governor of Athens) with the Mufti of Thebes (a sort of Mussulman Bishop) supped here and made themselves beastly with raw rum, and the Padré of the convent being as drunk as we, my Attic feast went off with great éclat. I have had a present of a stallion from the Pacha of the Morea. I caught a fever going to Olympia. I was blown ashore on the Island of Salamis, in my way to Corinth through the Gulf of Ægina. I have kicked an Athenian postmaster, I have a friendship with the French consul and an Italian painter, and am on good terms with five Teutones and Cimbri, Danes and Germans, who are travelling for an Academy. Vale!